Poem: NOT I

Some like drink
In a pint pot,
Some like to think;
Some not.

Strong Dutch cheese,
Old Kentucky rye,
Some like these;
Not I.

Some like Poe,
And others like Scott,
Some like Mrs. Stowe;
Some not.

Some like to laugh,
Some like to cry,
Some like chaff;
Not I.

Poem: II

Here, perfect to a wish,
We offer, not a dish,
But just the platter:
A book that’s not a book,
A pamphlet in the look
But not the matter.

I own in disarray:
As to the flowers of May
The frosts of Winter;
To my poetic rage,
The smallness of the page
And of the printer.

Poem: III

As seamen on the seas
With song and dance descry
Adown the morning breeze
An islet in the sky:
In Araby the dry,
As o’er the sandy plain
The panting camels cry
To smell the coming rain:

So all things over earth
A common law obey,
And rarity and worth
Pass, arm in arm, away;
And even so, to-day,
The printer and the bard,
In pressless Davos, pray
Their sixpenny reward.

Poem: IV

The pamphlet here presented
Was planned and printed by
A printer unindented,
A bard whom all decry.

The author and the printer,
With various kinds of skill,
Concocted it in Winter
At Davos on the Hill.

They burned the nightly taper;
But now the work is ripe -
Observe the costly paper,
Remark the perfect type!